Beer and Blog

OK boys and girls, this week Scott Kveton is going to help us understand the ins and outs of OpenID and how to implement it on your blog. I know @turoczy will be excited about this because we wants OpenID back on the comments form for SiliconFlorist. If you don’t know about OpenID, here’s a great excerpt from their site:

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

OpenID is still in the adoption phase and is becoming more and more popular, as large organizations like AOL, Microsoft, Sun, Novell, etc. begin to accept and provide OpenIDs. Today it is estimated that there are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly ten-thousand sites supporting OpenID logins.

If you don’t know Scott Kveton, then you can’t come. Just kidding. It’s just that he’s kind of a big deal. Kveton is the Chair of the OpenID Foundation. He’s also worked some high-up positions in Jan Rain, MyStrands, and now Vidoop. I’m sure that we’ll also talk with Scott about Vidoop, which is the next generation in online identity validation (after passwords).

Here’s what it looks like when you have OpenID installed on your blog:

You might want this on your blog because OpenID users only have to put in their ID and it autopopulates their name, website, and email address; which are the three things you have to enter on every blog in order to leave comments. Not only does it speed things up for your OpenID users, but it makes your blog look more progressive, which means you look cooler. Value and style, that’s OpenID on your blog.

It looks like the Green Dragon is working out great as a venue, so let’s do that again. If you do this sorta thing, RSVP on Upcoming.